Will.i.am of the Black Eyed Peas believes Kanye West has made a "dangerous" decision to reveal his presidential bid. West announced last week that he would run for president in 2020, but Will.i.am told The Mirror in an interview published Sunday that it was not a decision the rapper should take lightly.
"Whatever! It’s a dangerous thing to be playing with. If you’re not serious, you don’t play with that, especially now," Will.i.am, whose real name is William Adams, said of West's political aspirations. "Like what the f***, seriously, I don’t even know what like community service you do."
The Black Eyed Peas frontman added that there were other ways to ignite change within the country without entering the political sphere.
"There’s so many ways to help our communities other than politics and you don’t have to run for office to change people’s lives for the better," he continued. "For the past 11 years I went back to the ghetto where I’m from and started a school. I started with 65 kids — now I have 720 kids and growing."
Will.i.am explained that many of the children from his school have attended prestigious academic institutions and majored in fields that they never dreamed were possible.
"Our kids have gone off to colleges they probably never thought, or anyone thought, they’d go to — like Dartmouth, Brown, Stanford, UCLA — studying things you probably never thought they would study, like bioscience, engineering, autonomy, robotics and computer science," he said. "So you don’t have to be a politician to protect the youth. Politics, nah. I'd rather do what I do, and do as much as I can."
West has faced widespread criticism in the days following his presidential bid announcement. In a controversial interview with Forbes, he withdrew his support for President Donald Trump, took a swipe at Biden and sided with anti-vaxxers and conspiracy theorists.
Reports later emerged that West is in the grip of a serious bipolar episode and his family members are worried about the damage he may be causing with his wild proclamations.
Zoe Papadakis ✉
Zoe Papadakis is a Newsmax writer based in South Africa with two decades of experience specializing in media and entertainment. She has been in the news industry as a reporter, writer and editor for newspapers, magazine and websites.
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